‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –
                                                 Emily Dickinson

 1
                                                 
In my wake two crows settle down
and, with them all around, the leaves,
the bright shadows – gold feathers –
scattered among the older browns:
the dance in air and then the swagger
back to late October’s carrion bone.

 2

One leaf lifted in all the falling down,
one leaf among browns, dead autumn
on the wing: solitary robin and now
a rusty heartache, dull emblem, ember
from another empty nest, the rest, yes
all the rest, some colder-yet December
edged around our freezing lake.

 3

No-color snow, nothing on nothing,
death’s heavy presence like all of love
grown will-less. So how a movement
in this heatless world? This flutter
in an icy cage of ribs?